Wal-Mart puts the screws on the poor

The New York Times recently reported that an internal
audit at Wal-Mart warned top executives three years ago
that employee records at 128 stores pointed to
extensive labor-law violations.

The audit looked at the timecard records of 25,000
employees. It found: 1,371 instances in which minors
worked too late at night, worked during school hours or
worked too many hours in a day; 60,767 instances in
which workers did not take rest breaks, and 15,705
instances suggesting that employees had worked through
their mealtimes.

Wal-Mart says this data is meaningless, because the
most likely explanation is that the employees in
question just forgot to punch out when they took their
breaks.

As someone who has worked in a sales associate position
at a large corporate store (though not Wal-Mart), I can
speak to the absurdity of this defense.

I did on occasion forget to punch out when I took my
lunch break or punch back in when I came back. I'm sure
this does happen at Wal-Mart.

However, I'm sure what does not happen is that this
mistake goes undetected. Every time I made the error,
my supervisor asked me about it, either the next day or
at some point before the end of the pay
period. Supervisors are generally given a sort of
budget of hours to work with. When they go to balance
this budget and see that the time clock computer is
reporting more hours than what they were expecting to
spend, they investigate. This is if they don't find the
mistake in the daily review they do of people's time
cards to make sure that they were in on time and worked
the number of hours that they were supposed to work
that day.

I'm even more certain that this wouldn't go undetected
at Wal-Mart, a store with a reputation for being
extremely vigilant with regard to its costs. The idea
that Wal-Mart would be paying its employees for time
when they are not working (like when they forget to
punch out for their lunch break) is patently
ridiculous.

Then there is the fact that the audit is not the only
evidence of these violations. There have actually been
complaints from employees who say they are forced to
work through what should be their mealtimes. In the
context of complaints, you certainly have to take the
numbers more seriously.

This is yet more evidence that there is no free
lunch. Consumers are bargain hungry; but more and more
I am beginning to think that bargain-hunting is a cruel
practice. If a product is cheap, it is almost always
because someone, somewhere along the line, is getting
screwed. This sets up some difficult decisions for the
poor.

I live on a very modest income. Others live on much
less. It is difficult to preach to people that they
should not stretch their hard-earned dollars to the max
by shopping at places like Wal-Mart. But we have to
realize that the people being screwed in order to make
those prices plummet are the very same lower-income
people trying to stretch their buck.

This is not a question of the wealthy,
Whole-Foods-shopping elite demanding that the poor pay
more for life's necessities. This is a question of the
proletariat looking out for ourselves. Don't shop at
Wal-Mart.